Judah P. Benjamin
Once a month here on the Molten Sulfur Blog, I run content taken from our book Archive: Historical People, Places, and Events for RPGs. This post is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Joel Dalenberg. Thanks for helping keep […]
Sentenced to Burn in Effigy
We’re all broadly familiar with the Spanish Inquisition, that fanatical office of the Spanish monarchy that used the Church to hunt down anyone who deviated from Catholicism. And we all know how fond the Inquisition was of burning people at the stake. But what did they do when somebody needed burning, but wasn’t around to […]
David Alroy, the Wizard-Messiah
The tale of the false Messiah David Alroy (dead circa 1160) is a wondrous one, full of magic and miracles, international politics, and abstruse scholarship. The appearance of a self-styled Chosen One is an amazing plot hook that works in most settings, and Alroy’s story is one of the better ones. Let’s dive in! This […]
The Wall Against Gog and Magog
There’s a long-running tradition in the West and in the Middle East of a wall someplace far to the east that holds back the hideous forces of Gog and Magog. The story originates in the Bible, continues through an ancient history, and winds up in its final version in the Koran and in fictional tales […]
More Visions of Hell to Use as Encounters
I’ve done two or three posts before about how historical visions of Hell can be turned into encounters that fit well into dungeons and extraplanar adventures. This time, let’s look at facets from four different visions of Hell, not just one! To start with, we’ve got First Enoch, a non-canonical Jewish text. First Enoch 18:12-16 […]
Chelm, the City of Fools
In Jewish folklore, the city of Chelm, Poland, is a city of fools. The ‘wise men of Chelm’ overlook laws of nature, fail to perform basic tasks, and just generally make silly and inappropriate decisions. There are many stories explaining why Chelmers are so foolish. One says that the angel responsible for seeding the world […]
The Men For Whom The World Exists
There exists a belief among Jewish mystics in a group of 36 humble righteous men for whom God permits the world to continue to exist. There are many names for these men. One is ‘lamedvavniks’. Their profound goodness, even in the face of a degenerate world, shows God that the world is worth perpetuating. For […]